14 Feb 2023
The government will not carry out further investigations into what killed thousands of shellfish off England’s North East and North Yorkshire coast. Since late-2021, thousands of marine life, including crabs, have washed up between Hartlepool and Whitby. We reported last week that the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee wrote to Environment Secretary […]
07 Feb 2023
The Chair of the Commons EFRA Committee has written to Therese Coffey, Defra Secretary of State, following the recent publication of the independent Crustacean Mortality Expert Panel’s report on the mass die-off on the north east coast of England. Below are some extracts from the letter: The Committee notes in the letter that the Minister […]
22 Jan 2023
The panel of independent experts set up to assess the cause of dead and dying crabs washed up on shores from October 2021 have published their findings. The panel, made up of experts from academia and industry, was chaired by Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser Gideon Henderson with input from the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir […]
22 Jan 2023
News release from Crustacean Compassion: Following the inclusion of decapod crustaceans in the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, Crustacean Compassion has commissioned the “The Snapshot”, the first benchmark to assess decapod crustacean welfare standards within the UK food supply chain. 30 UK seafood producers, processors, and retailers were evaluated in the benchmark, which assessed their […]
17 Jan 2023
Dredging at freeport sites across the UK should be paused while a mass die-off of marine life is investigated, ministers have been told. MPs used a Commons questions session to express further concerns over the deaths of thousands of crabs and lobsters washed up on North Sea beaches, the Evening Standard reported. The Government said it […]
22 Nov 2022
Campaigners who blame dredging for a die-off of shellfish along the North East coast have called for a halt to the practice in the River Tees while investigations continue. In October 2021, thousands of dead crabs and lobsters were found washed up on the Tees estuary and neighbouring north-east beaches. Countless crustaceans were found, with Marske […]
15 Nov 2022
An independent panel of external experts is to be set up to assess the evidence surrounding the deaths of large numbers of crustaceans, such as crabs and lobsters, on the North East coast between September and December 2021. In a letter to the Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee, Fisheries Minister Mark Spencer confirmed Defra’s […]
13 Apr 2022
A new study in the journal Chemosphere studies the effects of polystyrene beads on three freshwater species. The study expands the knowledge on the acute, chronic, and subchronic effects of MP polystyrene beads (PS-MP, size 1.0 µm) on three species of the freshwater chain. These species are the green alga Raphidocelis subcapitata, the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus, the cladoceran crustacean Ceriodaphnia […]